Friday, August 10, 2012

Are You A Loser? The 2 Rules For Turning Your Life Around

A good, honest question that often gets bad, dishonest answers is this: would you hang out with yourself? Most guys scoff at the idea of not enjoying their own company…

…yet little do they realize that self-deception is often the glaring first sign of being a loser.

Change your life

So today I want to explore a question that may be a bit uncomfortable for some readers. I want you to seriously determine if you’re a loser. To get to the answer, you need to step outside yourself and examine the objective facts. After all, honest self-assessment is the first step toward not being a loser.

Binary Choices

You determine whether or not you’re a loser every moment of every day. Everything you do can be broken into a binary: is this improving my life or is this destroying my life?

Though, every few minutes, I get distracted and check my email. This is a loser activity because it’s not improving my life. It’s merely a stupid habit I have that’s destroying (albeit in a tiny way) my life.

Now, if I observed myself throughout my entire day according to this binary, I’d try to determine whether my decisions to improve my life were outweighing my decisions to destroy my life. Everything from when I woke up to what I ate to how much time and attention I gave to my talents/opportunities would total up to determine if I lived like a loser.

String together a series a days, weeks, and months, and now suddenly these tiny binary decisions add up shaping whether or not you’re a loser or not. But it’s not always this simple…

What Are You Doing?

Most guys refuse to examine themselves this closely. Instead they rationalize their loser behaviors, like eating unhealthy food or watching hours of television, as “relaxation time” or some other excuse. But, again, let’s return to that glaring first sign of being a loser: self-deception.

Very few losers actually think to themselves, “I’m a loser.” Instead, losers get swept away by a tide of destructive decisions. I’ve seen so many losers who have horrific habits that sabotage their happiness, yet believe these habits are part of their identity or personality.

Some examples:

The guy who watches hours of television, believing that his knowledge of tv shows or pop culture makes him interesting or hip.

The guy who gets drunk or high excessively, thinking that habitual substance abuse allows him to enjoy life and have fun.

The guy who stands around a nightclub, not doing anything other than stare at women, and then claims that he had a fun night out with friends.

These are just a few examples off the top of my head to simply demonstrate a point: losers don’t think they’re losers. Most losers think they’re behaving in a way that’s improving their lives, yet they wonder why they aren’t successful or happy.

The answer is always in the binary: Is this decision improving my life or destroying it?

Everything in Moderation Including Moderation

Now, if this article ended on that last sentence it might seem as if I’m advocating a dry, sober existence where one never eats a white carbohydrate or indulges in the “fun” things in life. Fact is, unhealthy food, unhealthy drinks, and unhealthy habits have their time and place.

Let’s be honest: if all you’re doing is improving your life, then that makes you a loser, too. No one likes to be around the guy who can’t ever bend his elbow back and cut loose for some good, old fashioned, (and sometimes substance-dependent) fun!

(And trust me, I’m not one to shy away from a good time.)

But here are two rules to making your bad habits (sorta) good:

Only indulge yourself in destructive binary decisions after a long, consistent string of positive binary decisions. (For example, go out for a night of hard drinking after you grinded out work all day without distraction.)

While you’re making a bad decision in one aspect of your life, try to balance that bad decision with a positive decision in another aspect of your life. (For instance, if you go out for a night of drinking—which is bad for your health and wellness—try to balance the negative impact by developing other aspects of your life, such as meeting new women or improving your relationships with your friends.)

And so that’s it: the blueprint to not being a loser. Now that you know the truth about being a loser, examine your decisions on a moment-to-moment basis. Don’t rationalize. Just be honest with yourself and determine: